HOMM: Assembling artifacts???

[loinburger]

Last week I bought HOMM Platinum Edition for about ten bucks, which includes HOMM I, II, and III, plus the expansion for HOMM II and both expansions for HOMM III. I've only played HOMM III so far.

So, I'm playing a game on an extra large random map, with two levels (surface and subterranean), because I like long games. My town's a Conflux, I've captured a Necropolis (my first acquisition), a second Conflux (second acquisition), and recently a Dungeon. I've got four stay-at-home heroes and two roaming heroes, a Planeswalker and a Death Knight.

My Planeswalker is an Armageddon Hero, with an army consisting of a few Gold Dragons (found them at a refugee camp), some Black Dragons (from my Dungeon), and several Phoenixes, Magic Elementals, and Energy Elemenals (from my Confluxes). She always attacks first (Phoenixes are, AFAIK, the fastest unit in the game), is an expert in Fire Magic and also has an Orb of Fire (+50% damage to fire attacks), so she'll just cast Armageddon right away and that usually ends the battle. She's great for attacking Dragon Utopias (Armageddon kills the red and green dragons, and the units are able to finish off the black and gold dragons) and getting a big fat load of nice artifacts.

My Death Knight is just your run-of-the-mill Death Knight -- expert in necromancy and air magic (gotta Haste my undead), varying degrees of skill in Offense, Archery, Logistics, Tactics, Wisdom, and Mysticism. Got a big fat stack of skeleton warriors, etc. etc.

So anyhoo, my Armageddon hero has been picking up oodles of artifacts, and since she's got the Town Portal spell she's able to return home and drop them off with my stay-at-home heroes every now and then. This is how I accidentally assembled my first artifact -- the Armageddon hero had been picking up artifacts like Loins of Legion and Arms of Legion, and was dropping them off at the same town (my Capitol conflux) to increase its growth. Eventually I found the Head of Legion and dropped it off at the same town (which already had all of the other pieces), and the game asked me, "Do you want to assemble the Statue of Legion?" I figured "sure, why not, maybe it'll free up some space on my stay-at-home hero," and was sorely disappointed to discover that the Statue of Legion took up just as many slots as all of its parts. What gives? thought I. I click on the Statue, and find: "Statue increases growth of all towns with Castles by 50%." Whaaaaaaaa?

This happened to be the same turn that my Death Knight was making a visit back home -- his Wisdom skill wasn't high enough to learn Town Portal yet, and besides, Death Knights pretty much build their army as they go anyway. However, attrition eventually took its toll, and I wanted to give my Death Knight a fresh batch of Ghost Dragons and Dread Knights and whatever have you, plus there were some nice artifacts I'd been collecting for him. So my Death Knight stops in at my Necropolis, and I give him the Amulet of the Undertaker (+5% Necromancy), Vampire's Cowl (+10% Necromancy), and Dead Man's Boots (+15% Necromancy), and up pops a window: "You have all of the parts needed to construct the Cloak of the Undead King. Do you want to build this artifact?" Well, after my experience with the Statue of Legion, how could I say no? And so I put together the Cloak of the Undead King, which had the properties: "30% of battlefield dead are resurrected as skeletons. If hero has Necromancy skill then these percentages are added, and level of skill determines what is raised: Basic, Walking Dead; Advanced, Wights; Expert, Liches." Holy ****.

So, now my Death Knight has several Ghost Dragons, some Dread Knights, some Vampire Lords, and four stacks each containing over 150 Power Liches. Holy ****.

What other artifacts can be assembled in the game? I could get used this business...

[Malleus]

I never knew you could assemble the artifacts. Very cool Loin....

M

[Andemagne]

in addition of those 2 you have all ready discovered:
Angelic Alliance
Elixir of Life
Armour of the Damned
Power of the Dragon Father
Titan's Thunder
Admirals Hat
Bow of the Sharpshooter
Wizard's Well
Ring of the Magi
Cornucopia
(12 in total.)

and HoMM4 is also worth the try.

[Ben Kenobi]

I've never assembled an artifact like that loinburger.

That cloak is very cool

Andemagne, what do all the combinations do?

[loinburger]

Apparently the Armor of the Damned casts Slow, Curse, Weakness, and Misfortune on all of the enemy's stacks at the beginning of combat, and the Angelic Alliance (in addition to being composed of some of the best artifacts in the game) casts expert Prayer at the beginning of combat. Hot damn.

[SnowFire]

It's way too late now, but if you ever bother to scenario create for Heroes II: Price of Loyalty, beware that random artifacts of the highest level can possibly be equipment of Balduran (IIRC the name). This can create a problem when people find, oh, I don't know, the Ultimate Battle Gear right near their base.

If you don't know, the whole artifact-meld thing was taken from the Heroes II expansion, where one of the campaigns focuses on the hunt for relics of Balduran. The Sword gives +5 Attack, the Helmet +5 Spell Power, and the Armor +5 Defense. Assemble them all and you get all the bonuses, maxed morale and luck, and THE TOWN PORTAL SPELL. Understand that the Town Portal spell is beyond ridiculously rare to get in Heroes II, and I have seen it gotten legitmately only twice (and I played quite a bit of Heroes II). Thankfully, the expansion added in things like spell scrolls and the Ultimate Battle Gear so if a scenario required it, it could be acquired. I'm sure you're already quite familiar with the fact that Town Portal= instant win unless the map is designed around you having it.

As a random comment, the campaigns for Heroes III are far too easy. Only Evil Scenario I is interesting, and you probably have a patched version, where they toned down the difficulty. Really. Not to spoil things for you, but the last scenario of Heroes II has 3 of your castles versus 10 enemy castles in the beginning, with 3 neutral castles. The last scenario of Heroes III (well, excluding the dumb bonus campaign) has 3 of your castles versus... 2 enemy castles. It's really quite pathetic.
Now Heroes II, now that's a great challenge, especially since they keep track of the number of days you take. Even once you're good at the game, going faster and faster is still pretty tough. The expansion is also has some neat stuff.

[Andemagne]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Andemagne, what do all the combinations do?

that list so d@mn long, that I don't have time to write it now, but maybe later this week.

Ionburger got that Armour of the Damned right, but Angelic Alliance, in addition to that bless spell thingy, negates all morale penalties coming from having troops from different cities in one army. so you now can have all those dragons, titans and Angels in one army.

[loinburger]

Hmm, I double-checked, and it only negates morale penalties for having troops from different Good and Neutral cities in one army. You still get morale penalties for having units from Inferno, Necropolis (double-whammy, since the undead penalty also applies), and Dungeon.

It's still a pretty damn nice piece of equipment, though. Gives about +20 to all primary skills.

[Traianvs]

lol, i've played LOTS of homm3 and i've never assembled an artifact!!! pretty amazing stuff here...

I've never used town portal in my life cos I don't need it, when casting town portal you have to go all the way back, and during that period the enemy has flagged all resource mines you just captured, I prefer my heroes to patrol an area (in fact I usually take a hero and make one long run into enemy territory, I hardly ever return to my home country for reinforcements!)


btw i thought the admirals hat was "one" artifact?

[Traianvs]

Btw setting the difficulty at the hardest level in homm3, the game was pretty hard, as all your castles needed upgrades, and enemy cities were usually already upgraded!! Furthermore, lots of cities could only produce a certain amount of troops, most were restricted (such as not being able to build angels etc..) of several units

I had lots of difficulties for example in the first neutral campaign, 3r mission, for some reason the enemy always had hydras and cyclopses and stuff like that from the beginning...!

[asleepathewheel]

I have HoMM2 but haven't played 3 or 4. I've heard that 4 was a bit of a disappointment initially, but how is it now? Which one is the more enjoyable game, more detailed, more entertaining?

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by SnowFire

Understand that the Town Portal spell is beyond ridiculously rare to get in Heroes II, and I have seen it gotten legitmately only twice (and I played quite a bit of Heroes II).

Man, this is SOOOO true!
after playing 4 years of HoMMII i managed to get town portal ONE time....... i was like: What!?? this spell did exist in Heores 2??? i think the chance of appearing this spell is like 1% (along with all other 5th level spells) and actually i like it since its the ultimate HoMM spell.

[loinburger]

Yeah, they changed it to 4th level in HOMM III, but even so, 5th level spells are still pretty easy to get (although Implosion is really the only one that's worthwhile, but hoo baby, is it ever worth it...)

I have noticed that the computer likes to attack my worthless summoned elementals, even preferring to attack my earth elementals over my Liches or Sharpshooters or Zealots or whateverthehell my shooter(s) is/are, so those particular 5th level spells are still useful in single-player or when attacking neutral towns in multiplayer, but I'd never waste my spell points on a summon spell when playing a human opponent.

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by SnowFire
As a random comment, the campaigns for Heroes III are far too easy. Only Evil Scenario I is interesting, and you probably have a patched version, where they toned down the difficulty. Really. Not to spoil things for you, but the last scenario of Heroes II has 3 of your castles versus 10 enemy castles in the beginning, with 3 neutral castles. The last scenario of Heroes III (well, excluding the dumb bonus campaign) has 3 of your castles versus... 2 enemy castles. It's really quite pathetic.
Now Heroes II, now that's a great challenge, especially since they keep track of the number of days you take. Even once you're good at the game, going faster and faster is still pretty tough. The expansion is also has some neat stuff.

Im finishing Amarggedon's blade in HoMM3, and i have to say that its as much challenging as HoMM2 campaign (i finished the original heroes2 campaigns and one of its the expasions campains). Yes, HoMM3 campaigns were plain bad just because they were toooo easy.

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
I have HoMM2 but haven't played 3 or 4. I've heard that 4 was a bit of a disappointment initially, but how is it now? Which one is the more enjoyable game, more detailed, more entertaining?

HoMM3:

The first time i moved from Heroes 2 to Heroes 3 i felt: dude, this game lost some of "fairly tale magical, enchanting mood" in terms of overall feel, graphics, and music.
But then it had all what Heroes 2 had before and more, a LOT more. Another plus is the map editor: because of its exellent and easy map editor, making MP maps were became easier than ever; HoMM3 became of the best tbs MP game ever (IMHO).

HoMM4:

Around 3 month ago this is what i wrote about this game:

At first i hated it, because it was so different compared to previous HoMM series, but after 5 games (about 12-15 hours of HoMM4 gaming) this game has become very interesting.

My major complains about this game:
1. creatures that can cast damage spells: say, a genie can cast magic arrows that does *20 damage then 50 single stack of genies can cast a magic arrow that does 1000 damage!!!!= instant hero death (heroes fights in combat).

2. the battles have no hexagons; this makes the game feel a bit less "classic turn based".

3. BAAAD AI

But otherwise this game has many cool interesting new concepts (not always executed properly), and overall i'd say that this game is slitly inferior to HoMM3, but better than what Civ3 did over Civ2(and SMAC).

[Andemagne]

Originally posted by Trajanus
lol, i've played LOTS of homm3 and i've never assembled an artifact!!! pretty amazing stuff here...

you need to have "shadow of death"-expansion installed to be able to assemble artifacts.

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
I have HoMM2 but haven't played 3 or 4. I've heard that 4 was a bit of a disappointment initially, but how is it now? Which one is the more enjoyable game, more detailed, more entertaining?

in the beginning HoMM4 WAS a disappointment, now its ok. it's a good game. its has less different troops and less town types and everything, but in this game saying "less is more" aplies.

but after all HoMM3 is still the best game in the series.

[asleepathewheel]

Thanks for the opinions on the two games, will probably check one of them out one of these days.

[DarkCloud]

Here's what you wanted loinburger-

Armageddon`s Blade
Gives your hero + 3 attack, + 3 defence, + 6 knowledge and + 3 power.
Places the expert armageddon spell in your spellbook.
All allied creatures become immune to armageddon.

From the Shadow of Death

Angelic Alliance
In addition to all of the bonuses the Angelic Alliance grants the wearer to mix good and neutral town creatures without morale penalty. At the beginning of each combat the Angelic Alliance will cast Prayer.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Helm of Heavenly Enlightenment
+Celestial Necklace of Bliss
+Sword of Judgment
+Armor of Wonder
+Sandals of the Saint
+Lion's Shield of Courage

Cloak of the Undead King
In addition to all of the bonuses the Cloak of the Undead King will raise 30% of the battlefield dead as Skeletons. If hero already has the Necromancy skill then the percentages are added to the skill and the level of skill determines what type is resurrected.
Basic: Zombies
Advanced: Wights
Expert: Liches
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Amulet of the Undertaker
+Vampire's Cowl
+Dead Man's Boot

Elixir of Life
In addition to all of the bonuses the Elixir of Life will give all creatures in the Hero's ranks a 25% bonus to their health and gain the regeneration ability. Does not work on the undead or unliving creatures.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Ring of Life
+Vial of Life Blood
+Ring of Vitality

Armor of the Damned
In addition to all of the bonuses the Armor of the Damned casts these spells at the beginning of combat on all of your opponent's creatures: Slow, Disrupting Ray, Curse, Weakness, and Misfortune.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Skull Helmet
+Blackshard of the Dead Knight
+Rib Cage
+Shield of the Yawning Dead

Statue of Legion
In addition to the regular bonuses the Statue of Legion gives you +50% creature growth based off of the Castle creature generation level for all towns.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Legs of Legion
+Loins of Legion
+Torso of Legion
+Arms of Legion
+Head of Legion

Power of the Dragon Father
In addition to the regular bonuses the Power of the Dragon Father gives you +6 to all primary skills, and the hero's troops become immune to level 1-4 spells.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Crown of Dragontooth
+Necklace of Dragonteeth
+Dragon Wing Tabard
+Red Dragon Flame Tongue
+Dragon Scale Shield
+Quiet Eye of the Dragon
+Still Eye of the Dragon
+Dragonbone Greaves
+Dragon Scale Armor

Titan’s Thunder
In addition to the regular bonuses the Titan's Thunder gives the hero the Titan's Lightning Bolt that causes 600 points of damage and does not cost any spell points. If the hero does not have a spell book, then one will be permanently added.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Thunder Helmet
+Titan's Gladius
+Titan's Cuirass
+Sentinel's Shield

Admiral’s Hat
Admiral's Hat will remove the Boarding and Unboarding ship penalty, converting the hero’s movement points, in addition to the other bonuses.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Sea Captain's Hat
+Necklace of Ocean Guidance

Bow of the Sharpshooter
In addition to the other bonuses the Bow of the Sharpshooter will remove all ranged penalties, obstacle penalties, and melee penalties.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Bow of Elven Cherrywood
+Bowstring of the Unicorn's Mane
+Angel Feather Arrows

Wizard’s Well
In addition to the other bonuses the Wizard’s Well will regenerate all spell points each day.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Orb of Mana
+Talisman of Mana
+Charm of Mana

Ring of the Magi
In addition to the other bonuses the Ring of the Magi will add 50 rounds to spell duration.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Collar of Conjuring
+Ring of Conjuring
+Cape of Conjuring

Cornucopia
In addition to the other bonuses the Cornucopia will generate 4 of each precious resource, each day.
Requires the following artifacts to create:
+Everflowing Cloak of Crystal
+Everpouring Vial of Mercury
+Eversmoking Ring of Sulfur
+Ring of Infinite Gems

[DarkCloud]

IF you are interested in scenarios, I can send you a few of mine

Although I also reccomend The Pen and the Sword (by cattleman) downloadable at this site:http://www.h3trio.com/Non_Java_Menu/nonjavamainpage.htm

Possibly THE BEST heroes map not included in a Tarnum campaign

And many people like the Legacy of Qun-Jin series... which are amazingly tactically hard.

Do a google search on the following names, or you might be able to find them at H3Trio

Sander's Folly... by Timothy Duncan (epic tales)
Hail to the King... by Scrowe (good story/game/balance)

But I would prefer that you play my maps

I'll attach them if you like.

some are big on story- some on quests, and some on tactics!

[Traianvs]

angelic and titanic pride are two very tough maps (for me they were) and great map design as well!!

Btw, I don't have any expansion of the game => costs me money which i didn't have at that time, and now it can't be bought in stores an shops.. also, i'm not sure whether it adds much new stuff, althugh I heard things about a new city typ( conflux) etc so perhaps I should try and get them

+lots of good scenarios are not for the original homm3!

[SnowFire]

Never played any of DarkCloud's scenarios, but do play any map that says "by Timothy Duncan." That would include Goldheart and Sander's Folly for HOMM3, and his whole gigantic "Last Hope" saga for Heroes II. He manages to combine story and strategy quite well. Not recommended for the faint of heart though, as some maps can be quite hard.

[Andemagne]

thanks DarkCloud, you saved me a lot of work.

[DarkCloud]

I can't beat titantic pride or angellic pride it took me 10 restarts to take the city in angellic pride... and I have never managed to get out fo the dungeon

Last hope- I'll try looking for that, never found it yet.

I must be really horrible at H3-but the only usermaps I have ever beaten have been scrowes- Duncan's are abominably hard! But they are supposed to be good.

Snowfire- ever thought of trying one of mine?
I can send you a simple one with a simple story and reasonable strategy. Or I can send you one with an epic story and some strategy... Or I can send you one with a medium tale and lots of strategy

[Traianvs]

Yeah they are hard, though an experienced player should get out of the dungeon at least

the fun starts when you meet the hero with some 8000 cyclops kings

[loinburger]

Is there a good site for downloading scenarios? Y'know, like that one site that had all of the Dink Smallwood scenarios on it?

[SnowFire]

Back in the day, The Astral Wizard's site was easily the best for Heroes II information, and was very strong in Heroes III as well. Maps, map reviews, tactics, everything. After Armageddon's Blade, though, he kind of slowed down (at much the same time I did) and he's actually closing up shop soon.
http://www.astralwizard.com/common/a....htm#HFarewell

That means grab the maps while you can! Sure, they might move somewhere else, but it's easy to get them here. There are also fun strategy articles there as well. If you don't mind embarassing me, you can also download some old maps of mine. They're flawed in my opinion today, but some have merit. It'll be under Peter Ingraham, in the Heroes II section. Edit: No, actually just search for "Peter." I didn't use my full name for some reason.

Yeah, they changed it to 4th level in HOMM III, but even so, 5th level spells are still pretty easy to get (although Implosion is really the only one that's worthwhile, but hoo baby, is it ever worth it...)

Well, Town Gate was a level 4 spell in Heroes II, but it was middling because it warped you merely to the nearest town. In Heroes III, since they had the whole concept of spell school mastery, they just combined the two spells and said you get more impact at Expert. Which is still really cheap... Mass Slow was one of the best spells in Heroes II (it was level 4) and now, with Expert Earth, you can replicate it at level 1. Ugh. If you haven't figured out already, Earth is ridiculously awesome, Air isn't bad, Water's okay, and Fire sucks. Not entirely fair, but considering that most good Fire spells are good even without Mastery but don't get much better (like Blind)...

I have noticed that the computer likes to attack my worthless summoned elementals

Maybe they changed this in Shadow of Death, but the combat AI in H3 is to hunt down the weakest units first. If the elementals were the weakest, then this makes sense.

Heroes II, they gun for ranged units first, then flying units, then ground units, breaking ties by the most powerful in a set. While I agree that for hopeless battles it's better to cut your losses and hit your enemies weak units (better 10 Trogdolytes than 1/5 of a Black Dragon, which will heal after combat), this is a really bad strategy for winnable fights, as they'll waste time on my least deadly units. I was always more scared by the H2 strategy myself, considering how weak ranged units are in close combat, even if that was abusable too.

DC: Did you ever post your scenarios to the Internet, or to that h3trio site? Just put the link. No guarentees though, I've been a bit busy and have other games distracting me at the moment...

[loinburger]

Garr, the first campaign in Shadow of Death is so bloody frustrating. I'm collecting the Dead Man's Boots, Vampire's Cowl, and Undertaker's Amulet (the three components to the Cloak of the Undead King) in order to supposedly help some magician's apprentice construct an artifact that will help combat necromancy. Bullshit! I can't bloody wait until I have to fight the "magician's apprentice" when I discover that he's actually a bloody necromancer, especially since he'll have an entire army of Power Liches behind him...

Sometimes I wish I could just suicide my hero in these "accidentally help the bad guy with your idiot hero" campaigns. "Whoops, your hero is so goddamn stupid that she fell off of a cliff, I guess you won't have to fight that necromancer with the Power Lich army after all!"

[DarkCloud]

Is there a good site for downloading scenarios?

AAAAAHhhahhahahahaha!
Didn't you read my post

http://www.h3trio.com/Non_Java_Menu/nonjavamainpage.htm

http://members.lycos.co.uk/Heroes3/index.html

http://heroes.mycomport.com/maphaven.html

--
Hmm... the apprentice's name isn't Sandro by any chance, is he?

---
Snowfire, I can attach the others, but only one is at the H3Trio site... and It isn't my best (it's my first) the others arent' there yet becuase I just finished an intensive round of testing them... and with some feedback from Andemagne.


The one on the H3Trio site- you can access it by going to maps and searchig for DarkCloud

Although if you are intersted in a more compelling story, different challenge one of my others might be better.

Rise of the King (my 1st one) is a medium map... and it is really good for management of resources and is fairly challenging and has a good story- but I like my others better Although I would say that Rise of the King is at least B-class... so please dont' listen too much to my putdowns of it I just like my others so much better! And it has an 85% rating at the site- so it must be doing something good! when so many others are 70% and below!!!

Thanks for your offer!

Just wondering, do you have any scenarios that you made? I would be glad to try them!
--
also on the site- you can see the first screenshots of Heroes FIVE!

[DarkCloud]

The Angellic Alliance is what I feel to be my best Scenario (but I have yet to finish playtesting it),... and it is long.

NC-5 Winter Storms runs a close second (and should play fairly well, but I have yet to have an expert Hommer play it. Although some amaeturs, myself included have. ) Warning: it is story intensive

NC-1 (the one at the site) is my second best

NC-2 is my 4th

Here's a zip pack with the Angelilc alliance an NC-5

Good luck

and thanks!

please feel free to post any comments!